cooperation Flashcards
easter island
Colonized by indigenous people, collapsed due to ecological catastrophization
Couldn’t keep up balance with ecology, over exploitation of their own environment
Signs of cooperative instincts appear early on
Synchrony in yawning in babies
Experiments with altruism (spontaneous helping) in children and chimps
Adults keep failing to put books in shelf, toddler comes and opens the door to help the adult
When a task involves two people, the toddler grabs the adult to help him
Chimps also help adults but behaviors are more mixed
Bred in the bone(yale study)
(object helper/hinderer)
Child chooses the helper(the object that helps the other shape go up the hill), rather than the hinderer who pushes the object down the hill
Child also chooses the puppet that passes the ball back to the puppet who lost it
Empathy and compassion rooted in mammalian parental care instincts
We humans are cooperative breeders”it takes a village to raise a child”
The “grandmother hypothesis”
Grandmothers invest a lot of caretaking of their grandchildren(perform motherly duties)
Kin selection
the tendency for genetic relatives to help each other because natural selection favors behaviors that increase the chance of survival of genetic relatives
Hamilton’s rule:
(kin selection)
rxB>C
r=genetic relatedness; B=benefit; C=cost
Reciprocal altruism-
the tendency for strangers with good reputations to help each other as natural selection favors mutually beneficial behaviors as long as helping is reciprocated in some future time
The problem of free riding
A failure of cooperation in which individuals who receive benefits from other individuals or common resources do not contribute to it
examples of free riding
Tax evasion
Fair skipping in public transpo
Overfishing
Prisoners dilemma
Tit-for tat
one prisoner begins with cooperation, electing to not confess, and the other follows suit
Common resource pool dilemmas
In a shared limited resource system, individuals acting according to self interest, deplete the shared resource and undermine the “common good”
“The tragedy of the commons”
Tax evasion
Water conservation
Preservation of forests
The mother of all problems:
climate change
Possible ways to manage the commons dilemma
No all-size fits all solution; adapt to local conditions
Understanding that resource can be depleted
Community with thick social networks and strong social norms in favor of responsible use
Institutions that monitor resource use
Graduated sanctions for overuse
Mechanisms of conflict resolution that are easy to access
Large scale cooperation
any cooperation among individuals, where individuals are strangers to each other, degree of limitation
Reciprocal altruism (reputation-driven)-> limited cooperation(does not explain cooperation in large groups)
Kin selection->cooperation among kin (does not explain cooperation in large groups)
Cooperative norms(the golden rule)
The golden rule exists across cultures and religions
treat others the way you want to be treated
Supernatural policing
even if you’re in an anonymous situation, the gods are watching
Some ways how culture has solved problem of large scale cooperation
some monitoring institutions
policing
markets and trading
indirect reciprocity
cooperative cultural norms
expansion of the moral circle through emotions such as empathy,compassion,guilt,shame
supernatural monitoring
Karma and god: supernatural framing experiment
Does thinking of god while playing the dictator game make people more generous
When asked to think of god and karma there was more of an increase of money shared with another participant’
Very similar results among christians, hindus, and buddhists
Initially selfish offers switching to fairness
Supernatural framing did not make fair offers hyperfair
No effect found for non-believers
Follow up study: does this behavior relate to religious outgroups?
If you are christian, would you be more generous with a hindu or muslim?
Thinking about god increased giving by 11% equally to religious ingroups and outgroups
How did cooperation expand
Political institutions, cultural norms, extended emotions( empathy/compassion), shared rituals, moralizing gods and forces, trading and markets
Moral expansiveness scale(Peter singer)
Responsibility of humans to expand our moral scale
As time goes on we include more to our moral scale such as animals, environment, outgroups( they deserve as much respect as family/friends)
Two prevailing models of moral reasoning “The impartial judge”
Outcome based (utilitarianism):
Principle based (kantian):
Outcome based (utilitarianism)
what outcome benefits most people at the least cost?(eg. Save as many lives as possible for the least harm)
Principle based (kantian)
is this consistent with a given principle? (eg:do no harm, golden rule)
Social institutionist model of moral judgment:
The idea that people have fast, emotional reactions to morally relevant events and then may or may not recruit reasoning to arrive at a judgment of right or wrong.
These moral reactions are rooted in social identity, group norms, and social emotions
The elephant and the rider
elephant(emotions)
rider(reasoning and judgement)
If you want change to happen
Give direction to the rider, motivate the elephant (tapping into emotion), shape the path for easy progress
Moral Foundations theory
Proposes that there are 5 evolved moral domains in which specific emotions guide moral judgements
Moral domains:
care/harm(individuating)
fairness/cheating(individuating)
loyalty/betrayal(binding)
authority/subversion(binding)
purity/degradation(binding)
Moral foundations and politcal leanings
The more liberal people are the less they care about binding foundations (loyalty, authority, purity), they care more about harm and fairness(individuating)
Conservative care about all moral domains
instrumental values
cost benefit calculus
outcome focused
temporally distanced (time,context)
dose sensitive
identitiy irrelvant
rational actor
sacred values
moral emotions
principle focused,outcome irrelevant
universalist(wrong no matter what)
dose insensitive(slavery is wrong no matter how many enslaved)
identity relevant
devoted actor
